


grief

by Recluse



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Five Stages of Grief, M/M, Mental Instability, Other, POV Keith (Voltron), Post-Kerberos Mission, Pre-Kerberos Mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-09-28 05:00:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10072979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Recluse/pseuds/Recluse
Summary: There are five stages.





	

i.  
_Denial_

 

_“Tragedy struck today as three men are reported dead in space: Samuel Holt, Matthew Holt, and Takashi Shirogane. The three—”_

There are eight TVs in total in the mess hall.

Four are set up at the corners of the room. The other four hang at various heights in the center, circling around a pillar. Speakers are set up in an optimized way to spread sound across the room, one edge to another, an even spread with no quieter pockets.

The words _dead in space_ hover around Keith in every way, curling around him like smoke.

The entire hall goes pin-drop silent as the news anchor rattles off a summary of the Kerberos expedition. All eyes watch the monitors, no movement, no interruptions.

He can’t feel himself breathe as he does the same.

_“—Causes are still being investigated, but the Galaxy Garrison, who organized and authorized the trip alongside NASA, stated in a press release today that there may have been a pilot error that cost the crew their lives. More details will be released as this story unfolds.”_

For a moment, everything disappears. The world narrows down to nothing except himself.

And in the next, the room explodes with noise. Furious whispers, someone starts crying, shocked sobs that cause a chain reaction of mourning, soft weeping and louder wails echoing around the room. Samuel Holt was a well-loved, well-respected professor. Matthew Holt was everyone's friend. Shiro was the Garrison's hero.

In the background, a commercial for cereal plays, and somehow that’s what Keith finds himself focusing on, the soft jingle behind all the rest of the chaos in the room. The melody is simple and familiar, and amidst all the noise all he can do is sit and listen, frozen, thinking,

_Pilot error?_

_There’s no way Shiro would make a mistake though._

He believes the thought without a single shred of doubt. Shiro had trained hard for this mission, had worked himself to the bone, ground himself down to dust; Keith remembers it all like it was yesterday. He would fall asleep at his desk often, trying to catch up on new paperwork, exhausted after hours of flight simulations and physical examinations. Twice, Keith had caught him muttering the rules and regulations of the mission, trying to memorize every sentence in the stack, soft words muddy with self doubt in the dead of night. He remembers listening without speaking, barely two feet apart, Shiro lying in the other bed like a corpse with only a voice box come back to life.

There’s no way he would have made a _pilot error_ , not unless something else was wrong.

Logically, the back of his mind reminds him that this mission was unprecedented, and as such, with unpredictable risks, and that _pilot error_ doesn’t really mean anything without the details. _Pilot error_ could mean the pilot made a wrong move, that he told his crew the wrong information, that he was directed the wrong way and accepted it without questioning; _pilot error_ could mean anything that went wrong with the pilot even vaguely, any kind of accident. Some part of Keith, the part that isn’t tightening, twisting and churning and tearing, tells him that Shiro is never coming back. It tells him that Shiro is dead, that the living, breathing Shiro he knew won’t ever return, that somewhere out there in space, floating further and further away, there’s a body, parts and pieces. The only things left of the person he once knew.

He ignores it. Shiro can’t be dead. It just isn’t right.

He would have felt something, if Shiro had died, because Shiro, Shiro had been his—

—been his—

—his friend. Shiro had been his friend.

Shiro _is_ his friend, he corrects himself. Not _had been_. Is.

He rises to his feet, leaving his tray on the hard plastic tabletop, half his meal uneaten. When he reaches his room he's glad to find it empty, no roommate in sight.

His datapad lights up blue, a notification, and he presses his thumb to the middle, unlocking it.

There’s an email sent from the administration.

 

_Dear Students and Faculty,_

 

_It is with a heavy heart that we share this news with you._

_The Kerberos mission has ended in failure, with the whereabouts of all on-board unknown and presumed dead. The Garrison has released a statement on the mission, which you can find in entirety_ _here_ _._

_As you all know, space travel is a perilous effort. Even with the latest advancements in technology, there is still always some margin for error. We have lost three incredible spirits who sacrificed their lives to try and see this mission through, and their sacrifices will not be in vain nor forgotten. To Samuel Holt, Matthew Holt, and Takashi Shirogane: we salute you._

_A group vigil will be held outside in the quad May 8th, and separate vigils for each crew member will be held on later dates, to be announced shortly. Counseling will have their doors open for those who need them this week and next week, no appointments necessary._

 

The email is signed, official.

Keith deletes it.

 

ii.  
_Anger_

 

It sinks in at the memorial.

It’s a semi-public event, with those closer to the deceased towards the front, friends and other in the back. Keith sits in the third row, having pushed his way there, and stares at the three coffins, covered in flowers.

The front row is sparse. Shiro doesn’t have family, not in the way the Holts do.

He considers moving, sitting in the front row, representing Shiro in some way. He wonders if anyone would care, if anyone would even notice. He wonders if he would get kicked out.

He doesn’t move.

Instead, he stares at the coffins, feeling the gravity of the situation, heavy, crushing. Out of his hands.

His nails dig into his palms, into the meat of the muscle of his thumb, and he holds in the scream he feels building up in the back of his throat. His hands shake with the effort.

This isn’t right. Shiro should be on Kerberos, exploring the moon, Shiro should be on his way back, coming home with new information, surface samples, Shiro should be here, living and breathing and alive and not somewhere dead in space, not represented by a coffin covered in flowers and a flag, not mourned but celebrated. His life shouldn’t be up for debate on live news, his death shouldn’t be a public affair, his death shouldn’t have been at all; Keith presses his fists against his thighs, holds himself in from kicking the chair in front of him, from standing up and making a scene, turning around and yelling to every spectator that Shiro can’t be dead.

He can't be.

Somebody, the person in charge or one of them, stands up, walks to the front and stops in the center of the room. The people in the first row stand, a few in the second row do too.

Keith stays in his seat. He thinks for a second he should stand, for Shiro, but then, standing means something. Something he refuses to stand for.

He doesn’t pay attention to the words they say, condolences, accomplishments. He stares at the coffins, ignoring the hiccup of a sob from the front row, the quiet sniffling from behind him, around him, the sting in his own eyes. He stares at the coffin meant to represent Shiro, a picture of him nestled in a wreath of flowers, so far away Keith almost can’t make out the details, and thinks, _you can’t be dead_.

It’s not right. It’s not _fair_.

Shiro loved space. Keith remembers his face well enough, the way he could talk about it for hours. He loved space more than anyone, loved everything about it. He loved the idea of space travel, loved the stars, loved the planets and what they could hold, he loved the universe and what did it do? It took him and killed him without even sending his body back home. Without caring.

The thought makes him angry, pushes his blood through his veins, hot and sharp and pulsing. His fists press deeper into his legs, his nails digging into flesh so hard he can feel his skin break.

He curls inward, staring at his knees. The tears that fall are neither cold nor silent.

 

iii.  
_Bargaining_

 

He comes back to his house when the Garrison kicks him out. It’s the same as when he left it, dustier, maybe, and creaky, but everything is still there.

 _Not like there’s anyone out here,_ he thinks. The nearest city is at least an hour away by the hoverbike, which still sits outside the house, dirty and in need of repair. He’s just glad the water pump and the generator still work, otherwise he would be in big trouble.

The first week, he’s too busy with life to think about being kicked out. He’s too busy to think about anything; he shoves the motorbike he took from the Garrison when they dropped him into the garage and works on the hoverbike instead, wishing he was a better mechanic. He can’t remember everything about it the way his dad used to, but he makes do with what he has, what he can remember and the few blueprints scattered along the walls.

There’s still soap in the cabinets, and dried out wet wipes, rags, buckets, a mop, a pile of cleaning supplies that are dusty but not completely useless. He works methodically, cleaning the house one room at a time, top to bottom. He inspects the couch cushions and the bed for bugs, does his laundry by hand with dish soap because he has no detergent and no washing machine.

It’s strangely...Peaceful. Relaxing. The noise here is less than he’s used to, makes it easy to sleep. It’s just the sand, the wind, and the howl of the cliffs, some nights, the howl of some animal.

It’s only after he’s settled into routine that he starts to think, picking at a fresh scab.

There had been a constant barrage of news, _pilot error, pilot error, it was a pilot error._

 

_“I just gotta say, what were they thinking? Sending a new grad out there on a mission nobody’s ever done before? Sure, Samuel Holt was a veteran traveler, but his son was just as new as the pilot. Two young men trapped in a spaceship for a year with an old man? Hell, I would have gone crazy too!”_

 

_“I can’t believe Shiro could make a mistake. He was always really careful...He told us all the time to double-check ourselves.”_

_“Wasn’t he really confident though? Maybe...I mean...”_

 

_“It’s tragic that the Garrison made a mistake like this. We know Takashi Shirogane was a promising graduate, but they still put too much on his shoulders...He was so young. Hopefully they won’t make the same mistakes if they try this again. He could have had an amazing career in space travel, had they not pushed him so hard. It really is a terrible thing, what happened, and I'm deeply sorry for the family and friends of the crew.”_

 

_“Hey, you're Keith Kogane, right? I'm David Gallman. I'm doing a series of articles on the Kerberos crew members, and rumor has it you were Takashi Shirogane's last roommate before his trip to Kerberos. Do you have anything you want to say about him?"_

 

_“You hear a lot about Takashi Shirogane if you ask, you know? He was a popular kid. Professors liked him, other students liked him. He was an upstanding type. It really makes you wonder what went wrong, or if something was wrong before the mission even started. Kids like him sometimes have the worst problems, and nobody ever notices until it’s too late.”_

 

_“Shiro wasn’t that great though. Like, I guess he was pretty good, but some of his scores are already being beaten in the simulators, so...”_

 

_“You know who I really feel bad for? The Holt family. Takashi Shirogane, he apparently didn’t have any family, at least, none that showed up to the memorial. But Samuel and Matthew Holt? They had a family, one that’s been torn apart thanks to some hotshot who thought he could do anything and got them all killed. It was terrible, watching that memorial. The youngest Holt, she was crying her eyes out. I can’t imagine what she’s going through, knowing that her father and brother are dead.”_

 

 _“Cadets, remember: Overconfidence is what led to the loss of the lives of the men on the Kerberos mission_ — _"_

 

—He pounds his fist against the hood of the bike once. The sound rings around him before the wind whips it away.

All the noise. All the words and the noise and the people who kept acting like it was all Shiro’s fault, like they knew everything about him, saying things like _in hindsight, we should have known,_ never shutting up, a constant chain of reminders that Shiro is gone—

—but all of that is over, now that he's been dropped.

There are nights he can’t sleep. Restless with energy that has nowhere to go, no outlets. Those nights, he climbs to the top of the roof and sits in the cold desert air, staring through the darkness until he can make out the vague shapes of the cliffs. He counts the stars and takes note of the moon, and he asks his questions to space, not expecting an answer.

After all, there’s no one else out here anymore.

_Why?_

Why didn’t they release the mission logs that Shiro had to have sent at least a few times? What harm would releasing all the data do? They hadn’t declared them dead that early on into the expedition, and Shiro would have sent them logs periodically, it was part of the mission. The crew too, where were their logs? Everyone had an obligation to send them, and if anything he’s heard is true, they would have, constantly. Shiro had said they were both geniuses in their fields, enthusiastic about space, about space research. They were scientists, weren’t they? People who wanted to share what they found?

Above him, the moon shines bright, not round but waning quarter. The starlight hazes over the rest of the desert, tinting the sand.

...Why did it have to be Shiro?

When he asks, the question twists him inside. Was it something he did? Was it something he didn’t do? Was it punishment? But what could be bad enough to warrant this? Shiro had never told him much about his life before the Garrison, and he hadn’t pushed, because he had understood, but now he regrets it. He should have asked, should have known, then maybe somehow Shiro wouldn’t be gone. Maybe he could have warned him. Maybe he could have done something, anything, changed the past, changed the future.

 _If,_ he thinks, _it would bring Shiro back, I…_

Something heavy drops in his chest. It pulls him forward, tears his eyes from the sky and onto the wood of the roof. He’s seized by fear. He’s never been so scared in his life.

No, it’s more than that, it’s a sensation overwhelming, painful, cold on the inside, his lungs squeezing, closing his throat. Throttled, breaths rattling, taking him over, unbalanced, he’s terrified. The world around him turns to nothing. Everything is tight, pulling on every end, stretching him thinner, locking around him, pressurizing, and then—

—it stops. Comes to a screeching halt, whiplash taking his spirit, ripping it from his body through a single breath. 

He almost collapses against the roof, stays sitting upright through sheer force of will.

 _If,_ disoriented, aching, _it were only the Holts_ —

—he can’t even finish the thought without a wave of nausea. How could he think that? How could he ask for something like that? The sound of crying comes to haunt him, he shakes his head hard, _shut up! Leave me alone!_

Was it hopeless? Is it hopeless? Can’t he believe that Shiro isn’t dead? He can’t be dead if there’s no part of him to prove it, he wants to think, wants to stop thinking.

For the second time, he cries, loudly, no longer contained by anything, no longer held to the world in any way.

 

iv.  
_Depression_

 

Keith stares at the knife.

It’s an odd knife, he knows that much. The material isn’t like steel or iron, it never dulls, and it’s softer in texture, less smooth, more grainy, almost like a rock. The hilt glows in a way that doesn’t seem natural, and the symbol on it is one he's never seen anywhere else.

He never got to ask about it before everything happened. He’s kept it on him for as long as he can remember, never letting it get too far. It’s all he has left to tell him who he is.

A memory floats by. Once, Shiro had asked him, “Do you ever think about what you'll do in the future?”

He hadn’t been able to answer, at the time. Shiro had chided him a little for seemingly not thinking about it, but in the end he had just smiled and shrugged before saying, “You’ve got time to figure yourself out.”

When Shiro had said that, despite having heard it before, something had changed. The aimless urgency he had felt had dwindled, had been, for the first time, soothed, and he had thought, relieved, _I have time._

Now, he doesn’t feel anything.

There’s no urgency, but there's no relief either. All he feels is vaguely uneasy, walking a tightrope without knowing if there’s anything to catch him if he falls. He walks because he has to, and he carries the knife because it’s the only balance he has left.

He sinks back into the couch, slides until he’s lying down. He stares at the corkboard, old and worn, the thumbtacks pressed into it, the map that’s been there forever, the new additions he’s been putting up with the rest, pictures and notes.

He should get up. He should go back to that cave he found, take more pictures, more notes, but it’s the kind of day where he can hardly bring himself to move, where inertia has sunk in, unstoppable until the next day. The next day, where he may be able to drag himself up and out the door, lose his mind to the rush of the wind and the hum of the hoverbike, the cliff's echo.

So, unwilling to move, he stares at the knife.

It's a cool knife, objectively speaking. Sturdy, strong. From the start, using it had felt like second nature, cutting through thick leathers like paper, even metal. He trusts it. Trusts it more than anything.

The window rattles. It’s been windy lately, though nothing severe, no storms in sight.

He breathes in, then out, inhale, exhale, again, again.

 

v.  
_Acceptance_

 

Shiro is dead.

He wakes up in the morning with this thought.

It’s an odd morning. He wakes up with that thought, and then feels a strong pulse of energy from somewhere, similar to how he feels when he visits the weird cave. He feels the air charge, and with no evidence whatsoever, he thinks, _something is going to happen today_.

Nothing happens. He eats the last of his last grocery run, plans the next one for the next day, and then as he’s sitting on the hoverbike, cruising across the desert with no destination in mind, he sees it. Something hurtling towards Earth, maybe a meteor.

He feels it again, stronger this time, _something is going to happen._

He turns the bike around.

It’s a mad dash to grab what he thinks he needs. The Garrison will definitely investigate, he has to get there before they do, but just in case — he takes something extra. They’re just sitting around, so what does it matter.

The knife is already holstered. Something to hide his identity might be good.

There’s no time for anything else. He grabs it all and runs back out, starts the bike and goes at a breakneck speed, trying to catch up to the definitely-not-meteor hurtling towards the ground. It looks like it’ll land right next to the Garrison, which, just his luck.

The thing crashes into the sand and skids, almost burrows before stopping, half-covered by sand. The Garrison gets there before he does; he changes routes and sets up the flares, puts them on a timer and surfs the edges of the dunes, trying to keep himself hidden while keeping the Garrison in sight. They make quick work of extracting whatever it is, and as they do, his eyes open wide.

It’s a ship. One that lets them inside.

The flares go off, explosions from a distance. Most of the group goes to see what's going on, the rest, he sneaks around, staying low until he can get his bike close enough to run in and run out. It’s not hard to sneak in. The doors aren’t locked, they slide open at his touch. The people are harder to deal with, but it’s nothing more than a momentary nuisance; two of them go down in one hit, the other practically knocks himself out.

Someone is lying on the table.

He has to know.

When he turns the head to see their face, it takes a minute for it to sink in. There’s a nasty scar across his nose, his hair has turned white, he looks worn out, bruised and battered, but—

—it’s him. It’s Shiro.

He’s here. He’s alive.

He’s _home_.

 

vi.  
_Apprehension_

 

Shiro is different then he used to be.

It’s not a bad thing. It’s not...It’s not something he means as a bad thing. Shiro hasn’t changed in a bad way, not necessarily. He’s still Shiro at heart, still the same when it comes down to the major things, what he believes in, the way he still radiates hope, warmth. The way he can make everything seem like it’s going to be okay, speaking all the right words to bring people up again.

It’s the little things that have changed.

The wary look in his eyes. The way he carries himself, a little more cautious, a little less daring. The moments where he’ll freeze, seeing something that’s not there, how it takes a few seconds to wake him up from the stupor, his refusal to acknowledge it, shaking it off like it never happened.

His self-deprecating jokes no longer sound entirely like jokes. They carry an underside of bitterness, thin slivers of a sharp taint. They hurt a little to hear, Keith thinks, his hands curling into loose fists at his sides. Sometimes his smile is faded, more than it used to be, and sometimes, sometimes he smiles in a way that’s painful, that says something that Keith doesn’t want to hear.

 

_“You’re gonna make it,” he says, insistent. Shiro smiles at him slowly, amused, eyes distant._

 

_He feels the world crumble under his feet at that smile, but before he can dwell on it, there’s a light from above and the Green Lion appears, and then nothing else matters._

 

Shiro has changed. But, Keith thinks, looking at the knife, he has too.

They don’t talk about it. Kolivan had explained it to him on the way back after he had asked, the reasons why he had seen Shiro, why he had seen his dad, why it had been the way it had been. It had been awkward, silence stretching thin afterwards in the cockpit, too many bodies and not enough space.

He doesn’t want to talk about it. Doesn’t want to talk about how Shiro is — is important to him, in so many ways, what it means that he was the one he wanted to see, what it means that Shiro holds his hopes and his fears all at once, what it means that, more than anything, Shiro turning his back and walking away is what he’s afraid of. Shiro choosing to leave, not forcibly taken but by his own volition, the words he — not him, the fake, the image — had said, _selfish, chose to be._

Keith does not forget the night on the roof, the moment where he had wished for, if it was the cost that had to be paid, Shiro in exchange for the Holts. When he looks at Pidge he sees something familiar in the way they’ll recklessly run into danger at the first sign of their family, putting everything aside for the barest crack of hope. It scares him. It scares him because he knows he’d do the same for Shiro or for answers to his past, that he has done the same, over and over, putting the universe on the line for an answer, putting his neck to the blade if it means he’ll get a little closer to the things he’s always been looking for. When he looks at Pidge he sees something that could hurt her, and he understands Shiro a little better, why he keeps telling him to focus, because there’s not always room for distraction. There’s not always time to choose between his universe or the rest of it; he has to focus on the bigger picture, the biggest of them all.

He can’t help but wonder how many times Shiro has chosen the universe over his own. The pain in his voice when Ulaz had sacrificed himself, the quiet murmur spoken more to himself than to Keith, out into the vastness of space, "I still have so many questions." Brief, a moment of mourning, and personal, something that’s always been rare with Shiro, more so now than ever. Questions, so many questions, Keith feels like he’s swimming in them, sludgy mysteries that thicken constantly. Questions about Voltron, questions about himself, questions about the universe, questions about Shiro and why he keeps saying things like, “just in case.”

Just in case. Just in case _what_ , Keith almost wants to ask, what does Shiro think will happen to him? Why does he have to say it like that?

(Why does he think he’s not going to make it? Why does he act like he’s going to disappear?

He's not sure he could take it a second time. The thought is harrowing.)

Shiro has disappeared once, and Keith has had enough of that grief. He's had enough of aching to see him again, of wanting, of wishing, of longing for a smile. It hurts to think about.

He has him back. When he looks at him now, sturdy and real and alive, heat flares in his chest, full and relieved, and yet, still aching. Afraid of what could happen. Longing for something he doesn't yet know.

Still.

"It's good to have you back."

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, I feel morally obligated to explain that while the five stages of grief has no empirical data to support it, meaning that there's no actual numeric data/observational data that suggests it's real in any way, it is often used to provide structure to those who are grieving, because often grief comes with a loss of control, and structure provides some degree of control that can comfort people.
> 
> Cool now that I've got that out of the way: haha, entering into Shiro's birthday 1) late 2) with a fic that's not even really centered on him. There's actually a couple of things I didn't get to do in this fic that I would have liked to do, such as: Keith printing out news articles on Shiro's death and keeping them as some kind of fucked up coping mechanism, but uh, also, I don't think I can beat Keith down THAT much in one fic. Another, maybe.
> 
> It is also safe to assume that this fic ties to [orbit](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8092285) as much as it can, but with adjustments for the new S2 content. (Also, did someone recommend orbit recently? It got like, 400+ hits in two days, and it's a pretty old fic by now. Not that I'm complaining, aha, just curious.) You don't _have_ to read orbit to read this fic (I hope), but I mean, it might make the experience hurt a little more.
> 
> I switch between she/they pronouns for Pidge, due to canon. Sorry if that's a bit confusing. The sort of rough pacing of this fic is also pretty intentional.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and feel free to comment with questions or whatever is on your mind.


End file.
